Achaemenid Empire

The Achaemenid Empire was one of the ruling dynasties of the Persian Empire, ruling over the lands of Persia from 550 BCE to 330 BCE. Their famous leaders included Darius the Great and Darius III of Persia, both of whom led their empire to greatness. However, the latter lost the empire when Alexander the Great conquered Persia in the 330s BCE.

Wars
The Achaemenid Empire was created in 550 BCE by Shahanshah Cyrus the Great, who conquered the Median Empire, Lydian Empire, and Babylonian Empire with the Persians, a tribe from Central Asia. The empire took over all of Middle East, including Asia Minor, Persia, Khwarazmia, Lydia, and northwestern India and Pakistan. The empire trained a massive army with professional troops, and were allied with several smaller empires such as the Arabian Empire, Scythians, and Sarmatians, while they fought with Sudanese and North African tribes for land. Their most famous enemies were the Hellenics, which included Sparta, Athens, Thebes, Argus, Macedon, and Troy, leading to the Greco-Persian Wars, where they lost their territory in Thrace to the Greek city-states.

In the 300s BCE, shortly after the conclusion of the Greco-Periian Wars, they fought with the Kingdom of Macedon, led by Philip II of Macedon, who trained a professional army to fight them. They were later enemies with his son Alexander the Great, whose dreams were to get revenge on Persia now that Xerxes was in his tomb, and the Macedonians had many victories with few losses to the army of Darius III of Persia, who was later assassinated by his own satrap Artaxerxes V, who was King of Persia for just a short while. Afterwards, Alexander had Artaxerxes executed and he took the throne.

Army
The Achaemenid Empire had a variety of troops incorporated into their army: they had Medean Infantry from their Province of Medea, as well as tribal infantry and Indian war elephants.